ABSTRACT
The results of the general elections for the House of Representatives held in November 2003 show that the collapse of the Left may substantially alter the character of Japan’s postwar democracy, which has now lasted for 59 years. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Japan Communist Party (JCP) together won a mere 15 seats out of a total of 480. This was less than the proportion held by the social democratic forces in 1937, just before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. At the general elections held in February 1936, the social democratic parties won 22 seats and in the general elections of April 1937 they received 37 seats. Moreover, this was out of a total of 466 seats, less than the present total. The number of seats held by socialist parties in parliament at the beginning of the twenty-first century was less than half that of prewar Japan, over which the Peace Preservation Law held sway.
